


come on home

by dizzy



Series: we're all fucking fine 2020 advent fics [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, everybody lives (eventually)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27959267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Dean can't remember what he said to Cas, but maybe it's not that important anyway.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: we're all fucking fine 2020 advent fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035990
Comments: 15
Kudos: 110





	come on home

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _ANYTHING DESTIEL I BEG, MAYBE WATCH THE CAS CONFESSION SCENE AND WRITE DEAN’S RESPONSE??_

Dean can't remember what he said. 

He tries. He lies awake at night staring up at the ceiling, replaying the moment in his head over and over. He remembers the cold shock of processing what Cas was telling him. He remembers the gut-wrenching fear of what was about to happen. He remembers opening his mouth to speak. 

He just can't remember what he said. He can't remember if he said anything at all. 

*

Sam knows something's up. 

Of course he does. They haven't gone through literal hell and back only to not know each other's deepest, darkest tells. 

The only thing Dean has going for them is that they're both so fucked up over so many things that it does take Sam a few weeks to work out that this might be a new layer of fucked-up-ed-ness to the whole damn shebang. 

It starts with the comments about how much Dean is drinking. 

"Yeah, I drink, so fucking what?" Dean says. "Old news, Sammy boy."

Sam towers over him. Dean's vision is a little blurry but he's pretty sure that's a glare. "Look-" 

"Look, look, look. Looksie here." Dean points up. So far up. "You, shush. Let me have my unhealthy coping mechanisms." 

Sam's glare softens. That's almost worse. "What are you coping with?" 

It's such a dumbfuck question that Dean almost laughs. "Life, man. Life." 

*

It might be more accurate to say he's coping with death, though. 

It's weird because over the years death has taken on an almost ephemeral quality to it. People die, he mourns, they come back. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it feels like it's the very next damn day. But he's learned to find comfort in the impermanence of everything, even the shit he'd like to never have to face again. 

It feels real though, this time. It feels permanent and he can't wrap his mind around how much that rocks him to his core, so he finds his solace in the bottom of a bottle and stops looking his brother in the eye. 

*

He's good at pretending, though. 

He calls on skills honed to a finesse in the empty motel rooms of his childhood. He bullshits with the best of them. Pets the dog. Eats his toast with Sam in the mornings. Goes through the motions. 

But they are just motions. In the late night hours insomnia takes over his mind and a mixture of panic and dread and hopelessness finds a home in his heart. 

He doesn't know what he'd do differently if he could. He'd have to know what he said to even know what different actually is. What he wants is more time - more time between Cas talking and Cas being gone. More time to wrap his neanderthal brain around the whys and the whatfors of it all. 

Though, to be fair, he does have time. He has all the time in the world right now. But what does figuring it out even mean if Cas isn't here anymore? 

*

He needs Sam off his back, so he tells him he's going out one night. 

Sam is actually happy. He's got his phone in his hand before Dean's even out the door and he knows Sam's calling up Eileen. 

Dean's dumb, but he's not that dumb. He knows Sam has been sticking close to home just to make sure Dean doesn't go off the deep end. He knows Sam's got places he'd rather be, a bed he'd rather be in than a twin bed in the fucking batcave. 

Sam thinks he doesn't need to worry about Dean because Dean's going out to have a drink and maybe get laid and that'll set him right. Hell, maybe it would. But Dean doesn't go home with anyone. 

He just sits. He watches, almost creepily, as men chat up other men. He watches two guys start to make out in the corner. He watches and he thinks of nights he's been one of those guys - mostly back before he and Sam started hunting together. A handful of times after. 

It's just an itch he wanted to scratch sometimes. An itch he never really let himself think too much about, because if he did he'd start to remember all the names his dad used to fling around never thinking maybe his son might identify a little too much with any of them. 

He closes his eyes to the sight of the men and thinks of keen blue eyes and a sternly set mouth and hands - hands that have touched him in ways that mean more than sex, that have saved him and built him back up and kept him from doing stupid things. His imagination betrays him, and he thinks of those hands and stubble and heat. 

He opens his eyes again and just barely catches the tail end of the two men leaving together. He knocks back more shots than he really should and lets that feeling deep in his chest burn a little more than he normally would. 

*

He's hungover on the morning of the vampire hunt. He wakes up weird; glad to see the dog. Glad to see Sam. But cranking it up to ten just to try and hide the empty feeling underneath. 

Is the hangover why he trips over his own damn feet in the barn? Or is it really the fault of that little part of him that's basically given up? Does he sense it on some level and just decide to ignore it? 

He's always had a bad problem with tempting fate, and fate has a real problem with being a son of a bitch back to him when he does. 

So yeah. All in all, ending up skewered by some rebar? Not actually that shocking. What does shock him is how much it damn hurts. Maybe really dying feels different than all those times he fake died, or maybe it just takes a little longer for the adrenaline to kick in. Every inch of his body is screaming pain and he wants it to be over but he doesn't - he doesn't want to say goodbye to Sam.

He doesn't want Sam to have to say goodbye to him. He doesn't want to leave his baby brother all alone in the world. 

But besides that... 

Not a whole lot to stick around for, and this hurts like hell. 

He licks his lips and tries to pretend he doesn't taste blood. He owes it to Sammy to say the right things on his way out. He needs to look past his own fear. Say the stuff that'll make it easy for Sam to say goodbye, then... let whatever happens happen. 

*

It doesn't happen. 

Or maybe it does. It must at least kinda happen because he definitely blacks out. 

But then he just... wakes up again. He wakes up and he's not stuck to a pole anymore. He's on the ground tasting blood in a big way now and he can feel arms around him, a hand right over his heart. 

His first thought is to curse at Sam for getting him down before he was actually done for because - it hurts? 

Doesn't it? 

It does, actually. It's just not the same as before. It feels like someone's blurring the edges of it. 

"What-" he croaks out. 

Sam is a blubbering mess in front of him. He really doesn't pull off that look too well anymore. Dean's gonna give him shit about it just as soon as he stops feeling like he's having an out of body experience. 

"Shh," a voice says in his ear, and fuck - fuck. Maybe he is dead and heaven is one hell of a practical joke, because that sounds like Cas. 

"Cas-" 

"Shh," the voice says again. It's a demand, not a request. 

Dean passes out again. 

*

He wakes up in the hospital. His eyes feel like someone rubbed sawdust in them and he recognizes the floaty feeling of a good, solid morphine drip. 

"-wasn't enough-" Cas is saying. 

He blinks a few dozen times until he can see Sam and Cas across the room from him. He clears his throat and their heads jerk to look at him in perfect unison. It'd be funny if Dean felt like he could laugh without his body splitting in two. 

"Dean," Sam says, taking a long-legged step toward the bed. His voice is low, the same one he's used hundreds of times to fill Dean in a cover story before anyone has the chance to catch them with different ones. "You, me, and Cas are brothers and were all drinking out at a barn when you-" 

"Tripped and fell on a rusty nail," Dean says. His voice is scratchy and he needs water. "Got it. I need a drink." 

"Dean." Sam scowls. "This is a hospital-" 

"Of _water_ ," Dean clarifies. "Jesus. How the hell am I alive?" 

"Not Jesus," Cas says. 

Dean actually laughs. At least, he tries to. That whole split in half thing... maybe not so far off. 

"Cas saved you. He used his Grace." Sam's voice sounds very serious. 

Kid still needs to lighten up sometimes. 

"Dude." Dean eyes Cas up and down. He's gonna have a whole lot of thoughts and feelings once he's not drugged up to his eyeballs but for now he says, "You did a pretty crappy job of it this time." 

Cas's smile looks sad and... guilty? "There wasn't much remaining. I worked as quickly as I could before it was gone." 

"Gone?" Dean asks. 

His head really is swimming. 

"Yes, gone." Cas doesn't offer more explanation.

"Show some gratitude, asshole," Sam says. "It was enough to keep you alive until we got to the hospital."

Dean nods slowly. He wishes Cas would come a little closer. He isn't sure what he'd do, but he still wishes it. 

*

Dean is alone the next time he wakes up. 

Everything hurts. A doctor comes in and he gets the full scoop on how close he was to kicking the bucket. Punctured lung, a few shattered ribs. Internal bleeding. 

Doctor says it's the damndest thing he's ever seen, how Dean wasn't dead before they even got him on the table. He tells Dean luck was on his side. 

Says Dean must have a guardian angel. 

"Yeah," Dan says, and he's learned his lesson about laughing so he just lets out a long breath. "Something like that." 

*

He's in the ICU for three more days, then a private room for a week. 

It's boring as hell. Sam and Cas are both there for the first two days, which means it's six days post Dean's actual-death-experience when he finally gets Sam alone to ask. 

"So what happened? How is he back?" 

Sam gives him a funny look. "You haven't asked him that?" 

"No," Dean says. He doesn't actually have a good answer as to why. He wouldn't have hesitated before. 

"Jack pulled him from the Empty. Cas said he helped Jack rebuild heaven, but in the end he decided he missed being on earth. He wanted to be back here. Jack said he could return, but he'd have to give up his grace." 

"So how did he have enough left to save my ass if Jack took it?" 

Sam shrugs and halfway grins. "I mean, Jack's the one who dropped in in that specific location at that specific time. Best we can figure, Jack just wanted to do us a solid." 

"Kid's already failing the hands off stuff," Dean says. He can laugh a little now. It's nice. 

"Still better than Chuck," Sam says. "Anyway, just another thing I'm grateful to him for." 

"Yeah," Dean says. "Me, too." 

*

Dean sits on the edge of his hospital bed.

He's out of the butt flashing gowns, finally, and into some of his own clothes. They've got him doing a few laps of the halls and he refused to show off the goods without being able to collect a cover charge from all the other people walking around. 

Basically, he annoyed them into letting him change. 

He's glad, too. Would have been awkward finally facing Cas alone while being worried about his balls catching a draft. 

He does wish he'd had some time to prepare, though. Maybe Sam could have given a little more of a heads up that he was taking the day off of Dean hospital duty. He feels a flare of irrational anger even though objectively he hopes Sam's having a hell of a good day off with his girl. He's earned it. 

And... this does need to happen. He squares his shoulders like he's going into battle. 

Then Cas tilts his head and all the wind goes out of Dean's sails. This isn't a fight. This is just... Cas. He feels exhausted. He hurts. He wants a drink. But life is short - apparently - and all that shit. 

"I don't know how to do this," Dean says. 

"I don't either," Cas says. 

Cas looks tired, too. There are circles under his eyes. He hasn't shaved in a day or two. Dean absently wonders who taught him to shave. Did he teach himself? Was it hilarious, or just sad? 

Dean suddenly and fiercely wants to own all those firsts going forward. His plan had been to just ask Cas what the hell he’d said to him when it all went bad at the end, but Dean is also struck with the realization that maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe it doesn’t matter. 

"I'm glad you're here," Dean says. Honesty is the best policy, right? "I wasn't okay without you." 

He's trying not to think of the way Cas looked at him right in those last few moments, eyes wide and tears messy and heart all over his face. 

Right now Cas just smiles faintly. "You would have been." 

"Nah, man." Dan shakes his head. He closes his eyes. "I really wouldn't have been. You don't just get over something like that." 

"Something like what?" Cas asks. 

Here it is. The moment. Go-time. Do or die. (Don't die.) 

"Losing someone you love." 

Cas nods slowly. "You've had too much loss in your life. I'm sorry I added to that." 

"Fuck-" Dean laughs. It still hurts some. Fuck a punctured lung, for real. Zero out of ten on the would-do-again scale. "You gotta listen to me because you know this kind of shit is hard for me to say." 

"What kind of... shit?" The pause before the last word is ultimate Cas. 

For some reason, that's what makes the clenching unease around Dean's vocal chords lessen just enough. "Telling someone when I’m feeling some things for them that are big. Bigger than I’m used to dealing with. You know me, Cas. Words aren’t really my thing. They’re more yours, actually. All that stuff you said about me? Fuck, man. How can I live up to that? But I do - you know. I feel things. The kind of things you feel for me." 

"Dean..." Cas is the one who sounds in pain now. He actually takes a physical step back. 

Not exactly the warm reception Dean was hoping for. No hearts and flowers. Not even a confetti cannon. 

"What?" Dean asks. He's trying to pretend like the full body tremble he has going on is just from the drug cocktail still pumping through his veins, and not absolute terror at this conversation. "Change your mind?" 

"No," Cas says. "But I don't-" 

"I do, though." Dean interrupts him. He just needs to get this the fuck out. No matter what happens, this is his chance, and he needs to stop this from being another thing that keeps him up at night. "I do. I don't know how, maybe. But I do. So if you can, I don't know, be patient with me I guess. Look, you know me. I got a lotta stuff to unpack. Some of it maybe you don't even know about, some of it nobody knows about except me and whatever random guys- anyway, that's. That's not the point. The point is, Cas, I wasn't okay without you, so I just don't want to be without you again. Can you breathe, buddy? You remember you actually need to do that now, right?" 

"I always breathed," Cas says. "But yes. I just... I don't know how to do this, either." 

"Are you... just... I don't know, man. Tell me how you're feeling." 

"I feel..." Cas swallows, then opens his eyes. "I feel relieved. I feel... overwhelmed. I feel grateful." 

"You don't need to be grateful," Dean says. 

"I feel glad that I'm here." Cas finally, finally takes a step forward. 

Dan gets to his feet. "Come on. Come here." 

It's not a passionate embrace. It's tentative and Dean is short of breath from just standing up and Cas touches him like he's afraid Dean will break, but it's... nice. It's good. It's a start. 

"They're letting me out next week," Dean says. 

"I know." Of course Cas knows. He's the honorary third brother, except not because Dean's not into that particular kink. 

"You'll be there?" 

"I'm not going anywhere," Cas says. He steps back. His hands move slowly off of Dean's shoulders. Dean can feel it so much better through a thin t-shirt than the jacket he's usually wearing when they hug. 

"I gotta sit down," Dean says, apologetic. "Lungs ain't what they used to be. You know, before I became a human shish kabob.” 

Cas looks down thoughtfully at him. "I think to be a shish kabob you'd have to have been skewered from the mouth to anus, or vice versa." 

"Oh, jesus, man!" Dean jerks back and laughs. "No thank you!" 

There's a smile on Cas's face now and that's it - that's the one Dean's been missing. 

Dean leans back in the hospital bed and pats the spot beside him. "Come on, pull up a chair. People's Court is about to come on. We can place bets on which side is gonna win." 

"Alright," Cas agrees, and then he's sitting beside Dean on the hospital bed and they're watching stupid daytime television and they're gonna figure this out. Maybe right now Dean still doesn't have a clue what he's doing and he still can't picture what this future is going to look like, but he doesn't have to. He and Cas are going to live it together, whatever it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Sarah for being the kind of beta reader the writers of the SPN finale needed. Especially considering how many times she had to correct 'Dan' into 'Dean.' 
> 
> Also this one goes out to Emily especially for reigniting my Dean/Cas love. I don't think you sent the prompt in, but consider it in your honor anyway.


End file.
